The guard's disability claim is under review, but could pay $32,000 a year for seven years. The 35-year-old Brad Coleman is on unpaid leave and works as a barber and part-time police officer in the southwestern Illinois village of Chester.

He told the newspaper seeing other prisoners reminded him of his brother, who was convicted in the 2009 deaths of Sheri Coleman and the couple's sons, ages 11 and 9.

A Department of Corrections spokesman confirms Coleman has applied for disability.